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He's begun to hate winter.
Yes, it's cold; but it isn't the cold. Food becomes scarcer and the sun doesn't come out much, but it isn't those things, either. It isn't the barren trees and frozen soil, nor the way the wyverns become sluggish and recalcitrant.
Claude hates winter because it reminds him of Dimitri. The cold and the gloom only served to highlight the prince's sunny smile, back at the monastery. Winter then was full of delightful mysteries that Dimitri would explain to him with that amused little smile that meant even a young child in Faerghus would know these things; but to Claude they were new and fascinating, and Dimitri loved that. By the end of that winter, Claude had gotten good enough at ice skating that he'd insisted on trying out a spin. The spin itself was easy enough, but stopping effectively proved difficult, and he made himself dizzy and slipped; but he didn't fall. He never fell on the ice, not once, because Dimitri's strong arms were always there to catch him. Just like he promised.
Claude hates winter because even inside the Riegan manor, bundled up in blankets in front of a roaring fire, it's even harder to get to sleep than usual. No measure he takes fully banishes the chill, and he suspects it isn't the weather that's responsible--not really. He feels cold not because the room is cold, but because the bed in the duke's master bedroom is enormous--way too big for one person--and all he can think about is that he'll never fall asleep nestled in Dimitri's warm embrace again, nor hear the prince's soft, mesmerizing voice tell him he's admired, or charming, or beautiful. He's never let anyone see him cry, not since he was a small boy, not even his parents; and so here, alone and shivering in bed in the middle of the night, is the only place he'll let himself truly grieve.
It's been a week since Judith brought the report from her scouts, the one that shattered all his hopes of allying with the Kingdom rebels and crushed all those vaguer dreams he never quite let himself consciously consider. A week since he stood there at his desk trying to breathe in a room full of people he couldn't show any reaction to, at the news. People who had no reason to think he would care that the prince of Faerghus had been executed, aside from perhaps a passing sadness for a friend from the Academy. He somehow managed to give them some plausible excuse to leave, though he doesn't even remember what it was. An hour later, Judith came out to find him wandering around in the orchard without a cloak or gloves, shivering in the chill without noticing. She chided him and he snapped at her. He didn't talk to anyone else that day about anything that wasn't strictly ducal business.
That night, he cried himself to sleep for the first time since he was a child, and he dreamed that Dimitri was calling his name as they dragged him off to be beheaded, and that he tried to tell Dimitri about all the feelings he'd always kept bottled up and buried under his easy smile, but no words would come out and then the headsman's axe came down and--
That was the first of the nightmares. There have been three more since then.
Tonight he isn't crying--not yet, at least. Tonight, he's cursing the winter for making him think about a laughing prince who taught him to pack snowballs and whose soft lips kept him warm no matter how cold it got outside. He's counting the weeks until this infernal season is over. He's dreading having to leave this room again in the morning and put on a smile and appease a bunch of ignorant nobles and read the reports of how the Imperial army has occupied yet another Kingdom territory...maybe he could pretend to be sick. Indefinitely.
"Come now, Claude, surely it isn't so bad?" He can hear Dimitri's voice in his mind so clearly. "I believe it's only a matter of time before all those counts and margraves see the wisdom in your words. You speak with such confidence, such poise--I'm sure they'll hardly be able to resist. I--" And then he would duck his head, embarrassed, with a delicate flush of pink in his cheeks, but he would say it anyway-- "I know I certainly have trouble resisting you." And then Claude would tease him, and--
And this certainly isn't helping him get to sleep.
Eventually, he does sleep, and in his dreams he's traveled to Faerghus, where a blizzard rages and he's caught outside in the swirling snow and howling wind. He's half-frozen and lost, unable to see a thing except the faint outline of a tall, blond figure with a flowing blue cape ahead. He calls Dimitri's name, but the wind steals the word and his breath away, and the prince can't hear him. He stumbles after the figure, knee-deep in snow, exhausted and numb with cold, and each time he tries to shout for Dimitri's help, there's only silence. Finally, he can't go on. He falls to his knees in the snow and struggles to rise, but he can't feel a thing anymore and his strength is fading fast. And then, at last, the prince turns. Comes back for him. Reaches out his hand. And Claude takes it, but he doesn't feel it. Dimitri puts his arms around him but he can't feel that, either. It's too late, he thinks. He can't feel anything. He'll never feel anything again. The cold has numbed him inside and out, and even Dimitri's warmth can't save him.
He wakes up shivering. His eyes are wet. Dawn's light filters through the window. He sits up, huddling under the blankets, staring at the fire's embers, and begins the painstaking process of packing his feelings away, deep down inside his heart, where they won't interfere with his confident smile. Later, he meets with a few nobles from the border territories between Leicester and the Kingdom, and one of them remarks that maybe it's high time the Empire does reunite Fodlan--after all, the last Blaiddyd turned out to be a cold-hearted killer and his own people had to send him to the Goddess to punish him. He holds out a hand to shake Claude's, as the duke enters the room.
Claude takes the man's hand and smiles. But he doesn't feel a thing.